Videolan, the non-profit organization behind VLC media player, has confirmed the blocking of the multimedia player’s website through a series of tweets on its official Twitter handle. The Paris-based group confirmed that its official site has been blocked in India since February 13. The official reason behind the blocking is yet to be revealed. An RTI request filed by Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital freedom organization, revealed that the government is unaware of the reason for blocking the VLC website in the country. The multimedia player is available for download through the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.
through a forum Post On Hacker News, Videolan president and lead developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf confirmed that the open-source VLC media player’s website has been blocked in India since February 13 this year. He said some ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have blocked the site. “We asked the Indian government and we did not get an answer. We probably didn’t ask for the right place. I wish I knew how to ask properly,” Kemp wrote.
“The strangest thing is that some ISPs are blocking it and some are not. So why is this happening? Are some ISPs not listening to the government?”, he added.
A techcrunch Report According to Jean-Baptiste Kempf, on February 13, traffic from the South Asian market dropped by 80 percent. India represents 10 percent of VLC users worldwide, he said, adding that website traffic has dropped by 20 percent. India banned.
After blocking the official website, VideoLAN reached out to Indian users via Twitter for help. According to an RTI (Right to Information) request filed by the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), the reason for the block is still unknown.
According to the Digital Liberties Organization, an RTI was filed with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in June for banning the website. The DoT transferred the request to the Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology (MeitY). IFF revealed that MeitY’s response on July 14 was that “no information is available [with MeitY],
However, in his one-line response, @GoI_MeitY It has been clarified that they do not have any such information. We have filed a first appeal against this response, arguing that it is illegal and unconscionable. (3/4)https://t.co/nz3KCtABBc
— Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) 14 August 2022
According to the IFF, the group “requested information on the basis of which videolan[dot]org has been blocked for access in India and whether any opportunity of hearing was provided to the website owners before the website was blocked for access in India. However, the IFF said it received a single-line response that MeitY did not have any such information.
The VideoLAN website is said to be accessible through a proxy website. Existing users can still access VLC Media Player on Google Play and App Store. But new users are not allowed to download the app through the official website, which may pose a security risk to users who try to download the popular video player through third-party sources.
